Backlinks and SEO

Backlinks

Many upcoming bloggers or website owners have a hard time understanding what the term “backlink” really mean.

I had the same problems when I started this blog so I have decided to write this post to explain what this bugging term really is, its importance to bloggers and website administrators and how it can best be utilized when optimizing your website or blog.

What is Backlink?

A backlink which is also known as “incoming link” or an “inbound link” is a link that is created between two websites. i.e a link between two different websites not WebPages. Backlinks are incoming links to a webpage or website.

For example, if website A admin writes an article and mentions website B in the article and puts the web address of B, a link between the two websites is established provided both websites use the “dofollow” tag on the links.

This means that it is possible not to get a backlink from a website even if you use “dofollow” on your side and the receiving website do not use it (bad right?).

Importance of Backlinks

When all is said, the most important question is still ‘why do I need backlinks?’ I will explain.

Let’s take for instance you applied for a job and you got a letter of recommendation from your professor in school or the governor of your state and submitted it to the organization you applied to work for, your professor or governor is directly giving you a “vote of confidence” and the organization will take your application seriously.

In the example above, your professor or governor is you “backlink” and they are directly telling your employer to be that “I vouch for him/her”.

If you get many backlinks to your site, it is a signal to search engines that others vouch for the content on your site.

This can dramatically shift the odds to your favour of your website or webpage surfacing Search Engine Result Pages (SERP).

Earning backlinks simply means your site will have a high ranking and your search visibility will increase.

What do Backlinks add to my website?

1.Brings referral traffic

2.Helps your site to be indexed faster

3.Improves your ranking

Common Terms Used in Backlink.

⦁Do-Follow Link: This is always the on all links on a website except you decide to change it. What this means is that all the links you add on your website will pass a link juice (explained later).

⦁No-Follow Link: This is normally used to link websites that you think are unreliable or sites that you think will land you into trouble with Google (especially if you want to use adsense) or other search engines. E.g porn sites or links from comments on other blogs.

If two websites are linked to each other but the link has a no-follow tag, the links does not pass link juice.

These links are not useful concerning the ranking of your website as they do not contribute anything to your page.

⦁Link Juice: the connection that is left between two linked pages or sites is called “link juice”. When any of your articles or your homepage is linked to by a webpage, it passes link juice to your site. You can decide not to pass your juice to other websites by using the no-follow tag. Link juice helps in ranking of articles and improves the Domain Authority of websites.

Note: If you pass link juice to a website by using do-follow tag, it does not negatively affect the backlinks you already have. The webpage may even have algorithms in place to automatically link back to WebPages that link to them or they may manually link to you also. That means there is a chance the favor will be been returned.

⦁Linking Root Domains: These are the number of backlinks that are coming into your website from unique domains. You should note that even if a websites links 50 times to your domain, it will only be counted as one linked root domain.

⦁Internal Links: when you interlink web pages in the same domain just like I am about to interlink my internet marketing page, the process is called interlinking. These links must point to page in the same domain and are called internal links.

⦁Low Quality Links: these are links that come from automated sites, spam sites or porn sites as mentioned earlier. If you want to buy backlinks, you should be careful or you may end up with these types of links. The bad part about it all is that you may get penalized by Google for having these inbound links.

How do I Earn Quality and Safe Backlinks?

The process of obtaining backlinks which is called link building or link earning is an important aspect of SEO.

As explained above, we can see that some backlinks are more valuable than others. This is because even in our lives, we listen to and respect some people more than other. This may be because of their authority or the value they add to our lives.

In backlinks, this is no different. Followed backlinks from trustworthy, popular and high authority sites are considered the most desirable backlinks to earn while backlinks from low-authority, websites that are potentially spammy are normally at the end of the line.

You can use tools like open site explorer to get insight on links that other people in your blogging niche or your website category have already used to make it to the top of the line in Domain Authority ranking and have a lot of backlinks.Read also:

How do I Get Backlinks?

1.Submit your website to a Web Directory

This is an easy way of getting backlinks but research is required to make sure you don’t use your hands to pour coffee on your laptop. Some directories are not Legal and yo may end up getting low quality backlinks.

2.Comment in Forums and Blogs

Commenting can get you backlinks. Find forums that you can answer questions they post and site your website as the source. People that find your answer interesting will also click on your link to read more about it.

Just remember not to give irrelevant answers to questions just so you can put a link to your website.

3.Write great articles

This should have come first because it is the simplest and best way of getting backlinks. Do your research and write srticles that people will naturally want to link to.

4.Make sure there are no broken links on your website

Fixing any broken links will increase your chances of getting backlinks. Nobody wants link to a site that it’s links are not working (page not found).

To cap it up, Backlinks are an important part of SEO but make sure you use the right channels and ways to get them. My apologies for the mix up in this post earlier. It has been rectified. Thanks for your understanding